them drew me like bright things draw babies. Eyes flashed within the intensifying gloom, and I caught a good look at one pair of them. I felt a jolt of recognition. They reminded me of someone . . .
“I know someone out there.”
Heath took my chin in his hand and forced me to look from the shadows to him. “Zo, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to gawk around here. You just need to make up your mind to go home and then click your heels together, or do some kind of High Priestess extra-special-zapping-magick-stuff and get back to the real world where you belong.”
“Without you?”
“Without me. I’m dead,” he said softly, stroking the side of my cheek with fingers that felt all too alive. “I’m supposed to be here; actually, I kinda think this is just the first step of where I’m supposed to be. But you’re still alive, Zo. You don’t belong here.”
I pulled my face from his hand and lurched away from him, standing up and shaking my head, making my hair fly around me like a crazy woman. “No! I won’t go back without you!”
Another shadow caught my eye from what was now a dark, writhing mist that surrounded us, and I was sure I saw the sharp glint of pointed horns. Then the mist boiled again, and a shadow took on a more human form, peering at me from out of the darkness. “I know you,” I whispered to the eyes that were so much like mine, only they looked older and sadder—a lot sadder.
Then another shape took her place. These eyes met mine, too, only they weren’t sad. They were taunting and blue, but that didn’t erase their familiarity.
“You . . .” I whispered, trying to pull myself from Heath’s arms, which were holding me tightly against his body.
“Don’t look. Just pull yourself together and go home, Zo.”
But I couldn’t stop looking. Something inside compelled me. I saw another face framed by eyes I knew—and this time I knew them well enough that the knowledge lent me strength, and I pulled away from Heath, turning him so he could see where I pointed into the gloom. “Holy crap, Heath! Look at that. It’s me!”
And it was. The “me” froze as we stared at each other. She was probably about nine years old, and she blinked up at me in terrified silence.
“Zoey Look at me.” Heath wrenched me around, holding my shoulders in a grip that I knew would cause bruises later. “You have to get out of here.”
“But that’s
“I think all of them are you—pieces of you. Something’s happened to your soul, Zoey, and you gotta get out of here so that it can get fixed.”
Suddenly I felt dizzy and sagged in his arms. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. The words I spoke were as true and as final as his death. “I can’t leave, Heath. Not unless all those pieces of me are
Heath pressed his forehead against mine. “Well, Zo, maybe you should try using that annoying mom voice you used on me when I drank too much and tell them to, I dunno, to stop all this bullpoopie and get back inside you where they belong.”
He sounded so much like me that he almost made me smile. Almost.
“But if I’m back together, I’ll have to leave here. I can feel it, Heath,” I whispered to him.
“If you don’t put yourself back together, you won’t ever leave here because you’re gonna die, Zo. I can feel that.”
I looked into his warm, familiar eyes. “Would that be so bad? I mean, this place seems a lot better than the mess that’s waiting for me back in the real world.”
“No, Zoey.” Heath sounded pissed. “It’s not okay here. Not for you.”
“Well, maybe that’s ’cause I’m not dead. Yet.” I swallowed and admitted, only to myself, that saying it out loud did sound kinda scary.
“I think there’s more to it than that.”
Heath wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was staring over my shoulder, and his eyes had gone all big and round. I turned around. The writhing figures that looked uncomfortably like bizarre, unfinished versions of me were hovering in and out of the black mist, milling and chattering and basically acting weirdly super nervous. Then there was a flash of light that turned into a huge set of dangerous, pointed horns, and with a terrible flapping noise, something descended on that end of the meadow, causing those spirits, those ghosts, those incomplete pieces of me to begin to scream and scream and scream while they scattered and disappeared before it.
“What happens now?” I asked Heath, trying—unsuccessfully—to keep the terror from my voice as we started backing across the meadow.
Heath took my hand and squeezed. “I don’t know, but I’ll be here with you through all of it. And right now,” he whispered in a voice filled with tension, “don’t look behind you, just come with me and
For one of the few times in my life, I didn’t argue with him. I didn’t question him. I did exactly what he said. I held on to Heath and ran.
Chapter 6
“Stevie Rae, this isn’t a good idea,” Dallas said as he hurried to keep up with her.
“I’m not gonna be gone long, promise,” she said, stopping as she got to the parking lot and looked around for Zoey’s little blue car. “Ha! There it is, and she always leaves the keys in it, ’cause the doors don’t lock anyway.” Stevie Rae jogged up to the Bug, opened the creaky door, and gave a victory shout when she saw the keys dangling from the ignition.
“Seriously, I wish you’d come to the Council Chamber with me and tell the vamps what you’re up to, even if you won’t tell me. Get their opinion about what’s goin’ on inside that head of yours, girl.”
Stevie Rae turned to Dallas. “Well, that’s the problem. I’m not sure what I’m doin’. And, Dallas, I wouldn’t tell a bunch of vamps stuff I wouldn’t tell you first, you gotta know that.”
Dallas rubbed a hand down his face. “I used to know that, but a lot’s happened fast, and you’re actin’ weird.”
She put her hand on his shoulder. “I just have a feelin’ that there might be somethin’ I can do to help Zoey, but I’m not gonna figure that out sittin’ up there in that room with a bunch of uptight vamps. I need to be out
“Can’t you do that from here? There’s lots of nice earth all over the school.”
Stevie Rae made herself smile at him. She hated lying to Dallas, but then again, she wasn’t really lying. She was really going to see if she could figure out a way to help Z, and she couldn’t do that at the House of Night. “There’re too many distractions here.”
“Okay, look, I know I can’t stop you from going, but I need you to promise me something, or I’m gonna make an ass outta myself by actually tryin’ to stop you.”
Stevie Rae’s eyes widened, and this time she didn’t have to force her smile. “You’re gonna try to kick my butt, Dallas?”
“Well, you and I both know it’d just be me
Still grinning at him, she said, “What do you want me to promise?”
